


Excuses For Your Monsters

by Dear_Soliloquy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Divergence - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Emotional Manipulation, Isolation, Legilimency, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Nightmares, Occlumency, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rationalization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 17:22:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20624747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dear_Soliloquy/pseuds/Dear_Soliloquy
Summary: In hindsight, Harry never thought he’d have found himself laughing maniacally at Bellatrix Lestrange in the Ministry of Magic.Revelling in her distress as she clutched at her wild curls and yelled that he was wrong, that the prophecy couldn’t possibly be destroyed because oh how terrible it would be to disappoint her wonderful Lord! Grinning at the idea of all the horrid, monstrous things Voldemort would inflict upon her for failing him, for being bested by Harry Potter once more. Imagining how his greatest enemy would be the one to act out the justice he had desperately craved.He also hadn't expected Voldemort to bear witness to his little slip in sanity, live and in person himself."How far can I (make you) fall?"





	Excuses For Your Monsters

In hindsight, Harry never thought he’d have found himself laughing maniacally at Bellatrix Lestrange in the Ministry of Magic. Revelling in her distress as she clutched at her wild curls and yelled that he was wrong, that the prophecy couldn’t possibly be destroyed because_ oh how terrible it would be to disappoint her wonderful Lord!_ Grinning at the idea of all the horrid, monstrous things Voldemort would inflict upon her for failing him, for being bested by _Harry Potter_ once more. Imagining how his greatest enemy would be the one to act out the justice he had desperately craved.

Yet in the moment, he hadn’t felt such delightful enjoyment in his entire life beforehand. Such _freedom_.

Nothing seemed so difficult when you simply couldn’t feel guilt or shame or regret, swept away instead by that bubbling madness. The pain replaced by curiosity – a hungry, sick fascination consuming his mind.

His friends weren’t here. Dumbledore wasn’t here. The Ministry officials had never been here.

And now Sirius couldn’t be either.

_She stole his life away._

And what did he have left now? What was the _point_ when they could all be stolen away so easily? When all he could do was _exact revenge…_

Harry glared at the woman over the edge of the fountain, fingers digging into the groove of his wand. He watched her wail as she cast another spell, her aim entirely skewed by rampant emotions at this point, and he felt disappointment, not fear, as he stood and raised his wand. _She deserves it. She has been deserving for such a long time._

“Crucio…” Harry muttered quietly. Tasting the word, unfamiliar and slightly bitter on his tongue.

_Not bitter, no… just new. Imagine how she said it with such ease, torturing poor Neville’s parents into insanity…_

He side-stepped another spell and took a step forward. “C-crucio,” he spat out, angry, disgusted, like some filthy thing that belonged with her filthy history. Her horrible taunting, _her laughter as she murdered your godfather…_ “Crucio!”

_Come on now, Harry, you have to mean it. Or did Sirius Black mean nothing to you? **Say it-**_

“CRUCIO!”

Bellatrix screamed. The sound echoed across the Ministry chamber, a tuneless shriek that was somehow warped into a satisfying euphony. Harry felt himself chuckling, though he barely registered it before he was silent again. Motionless; numb to his surroundings. The cavernous hall seeming oddly distant.

_“My Lord, please, I didn’t mean to fail you… Please forgive me…”_

The words faded in and out to Harry. He felt something leaving him cold, as though ice were slithering out of his veins and into the air around him, a ghost that had appeared in the background, watching over his shoulder. Ready to participate himself.

That high, cold voice was almost familiar to him now. “Ah, Bella… Such a shame that you could not follow a simple order. I will deal with your punishment later. Fortunately,” Harry froze when he felt sharp nails brush against his hand, Voldemort slowly moving forward, “it is no matter now.”

Piercing crimson drew Harry’s gaze, struggling to focus as he was, to the wizard standing before him. Analysing him with a strange fascination, his mouth pulling into a grin that Harry faintly thought he should find worrying.

“Not when I can simply take it from his mind,” Voldemort murmured, a finger just barely touching the side of Harry’s face almost tentatively.

He felt the emotions – wonder, glee, a childish excitement akin to when something frightfully interesting catches your attention, and you scarcely know what to do with i-

“Ah, _ah… Enough of that,_” Voldemort leaned forward to whisper cruelly. So close now, so dangerously close to him.

How… had this happened? Bellatrix was on the floor prostrating herself before her master, who’d turned and was speaking to her dismissively. She kept her head bowed as she rose and Apparated with a muted _crack_.

Voldemort’s words… they were the only thing that seemed clear to Harry, now. Everything else having become a part of some nightmarish haze. The wizard had approached him again – he was staring at Harry with a thoughtful expression.

“You’ve caused me so much _trouble_…” he muttered softly. “Certainly enough to warrant your death, should I so desire.” Harry closed his eyes, waiting. He was resigned to his fate. One dealt to him before he was even born.

How had he convinced himself he’d ever be able to escape that?

“Well, Harry? Where’s that fight you pride yourself on?”

Silence followed. What did he have to say to Voldemort? Was it even worth wasting his breath, to be taunted and insulted; shown just how foolish his entire life had been? Sharp pinpricks appeared along either side of his jaw, slowly pressing in as they raised his head.

“Look at me.”

Harry opened his eyes.

The shot of pain was like a needle straight through his skull. Venom injected into his brain that spread like fire, stung like acid – claws tearing through his memories so quickly he could only imagine the shredded massacre they’d left behind. The prophecy, those haunting words echoing around a presence that left Harry’s scar searing. He vaguely registered the sound of whining as he lifted his hand to it, only for those pinpricks to become daggers that dug harshly into his face, an entirely different pain to that in his mind and on his forehead.

Harry was burning up – he needed to escape this _torture_ dragging his mind apart. He watched himself clinging to the bony spine of a thestral, the clouds an icy cold that numbed his face and left his eyes streaming; Luna’s Patronus hopping about an old chamber filled with Hogwarts students; Umbridge sipping her nasty pink tea while his hand was carved up with her words; Dumbledore ignoring him, Fudge’s furious face when he was cleared of all charges, the nightmares of slithering along the floor, limbless, fangs extending as she coiled back to strike_-_

The sharp grip lessened and his mind went blank. Bereft of the poisonous shadow that had fallen over it.

Harry began to register vivid red, wide and so oddly disbelieving, taking him in before quickly fixing upon his scar. A pale hand rose again and, where he expected nails digging into his chin once more, they instead moved higher to ghost across the jagged cut. He winced instinctively.

But the pain was as sharp as it was brief. Harry found himself mirroring Voldemort’s expression, staring as cold skin pressed lightly against his forehead. “Wh-What are you…” The words died in Harry’s throat when sparks of powerful curiosity raced up and down his spine from that point of contact, shivers wracking his frame and inciting the urge to move – whether that was backwards or forwards, though, it seemed his body couldn’t decide.

The commanding, steady words of Albus Dumbledore saw that he didn’t have to.

“Step away from him, Tom. The Aurors are on their way.”

Voldemort’s eyes lingered on Harry for a second longer, before finally relaxing into a look of practiced mockery aimed at the wizard across the Atrium. Harry hadn’t dared to move his own gaze though – this close, he could see the underlying tension in his jaw, the tight grip he’d kept on his wand. It was both horrifying and… _fascinating…_ to see Lord Voldemort unnerved.

Yet of course, Harry’s world was flipped back onto its head as he locked eyes with the monster from his nightmares one more time.

“Are they, now? Well…” he spoke softly, as though just between the two of them. Sharp nails traced the side of Harry’s face and down, down until they held his jaw again, soothing over the red marks he’d caused earlier. “I suppose we should end this here.”

A spell from Dumbledore shot towards them like the crack of a whip, smashing into the shield Voldemort cast at the last second and shattering against it, though Harry hardly had the presence of mind to notice. His attention fixed upon the intensity of his enemy’s gaze as it was. The Dark Lord drew his head closer with a gentle coaxing; words slipping out in a silky, sensuous hiss.

**_“Sssuch a fool I have been.” _**He grinned, a twisted, frightening thing to witness while Harry's surroundings were eaten up by shadows. **_“You were never meant for death, my dear Harry.”_**

** **

Death. Darkness. What did he mean? Wasn’t he meant to be dying?

...Then what was this?


End file.
